Running Bear's December 2018 Coffee Shop


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Good morning y'all. 31° and sunny.

Louis: Thanks for the profile on Mr. Hyde. Was Buck fired or did he quit in disgust? Problem with the Orioles is ownership and management. Problem with baseball, (and other sports), boils down to team ownership and management plus direction by TV network money. MLB has probably lost me as a follower, I just couldn't get into it last year.

Buck's contract was not renewed. :( In other words, he was fired. Buck was put into a bad situation, he wanted to emphasize defense and relief pitching with the money they had to spend. While hoping the young starters would be ready. He ended up with hitters that could not hit or catch a cold and starters that never figured out how to become pitchers. The GM and the manager have to have the same goals or you end up with the worst record in the team's history, like last year.

The Orioles ownership has for the most part stayed out of the day to day management of the team, but the budget they set is making it difficult to compete. That and they need to give one man complete control. No more rival theories, please!

My hope is we can develop more young talent. The trades at the deadline last year gave us many prospects. I think it's reasonable to hope for a 500 club. Maybe we can pull off another 1989 or even better.

Greed is Killing the game, but many teams are limiting spending.

On the other hand even the Evil Empire (Yankees) have stopped spending stupid money. No worries the Phillies, Dodgers and others are still prepared to spend stupid money this offseason.

MLB is willingly losing the young people, that is what worries me the most.
 
Louis ..... The B&O RR Historical Society photo of the fabulous Christmas tree in a magnificent location is much appreciated. I can imagine sitting in that waiting room and staring at the tree for hours.

I decided I did not have time for all of the forums. I continued posting here with the good guys. (As long as y'all are willing to put up with me.) I still post in the MR Forum using the name I use for my model railroad (Heartland Division of CB&Q)

Garry, I can imagine me sitting right next to you staring at the tree for hours as well. I'm glad you liked it.

Put up with you?! I think I can speak for everybody when I say we greatly enjoy your posts and this place would not be the same without you!
 
Good Morning Everyone..................sunny and seasonal this morning but warmer tomorrow.

Down to the layout today to complete the ballasting of the two track leads into and out of the Saxeville Interchange. I just have to do the shoulders of the road bed. Again, since the back sides of the two road beds are not visible, they will remain unfinished.

I did work on wiring the two Tortoise switch machines for the three-two light, green over red, signals on the mine hopper entrance. These signals will aid an engineer when moving cars into or out of the loading hoppers. The Tortoise have two sets of contacts that can be used for power routing, signals, etc.

On all my Tortoise I've used card edge connectors to solder the power feeds and signal wiring, but I found a product from Accu-Lite that is a card edge connector with eight screw terminals. It makes short work of rewiring the existing wiring to the Tortoise, plus the indicator lights. And, changes to the wiring are easy to make under the layout. The device can be slipped off the bottom of the Tortoise to do any wiring and just slipped back on.

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I also have LED indicator lights on the fascia of the layout to show that the turnouts are in use or been operated.

The wiring to the Tortoise for the mine lighting is connected to a 10 position screw terminal. I like terminal strips to keep wiring neat and to trouble shoot wiring problems or find sources of power using a multi-meter. I use five different sources of voltages of power for the DCC, Signals, Tortoise, incandescent lighting and LED's.

That's all for now.

Greg

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A mobile crane working the Omro Junk Yard.
 
I saw my wife off to work, I miss her already.

I got the trash out and other chores complete. Now I have an hour of free time before my grandson wakes up.

Time for me to work on my Christmas tree in my train room/play pen.

I'm so very happy to be working on the 4th and final Christmas tree. Although I still have train gardens and nativity scenes to complete. I'll be happy if I finish before going to bed on Christmas Eve.

That is not counting the Bradford Exchange porcelain trees I have in our bedrooms. To be honest I'm not sure what they are made of, but I love those little trees. They each have colorful lights and at least on little train built in that circles them. The Lionel licensed Bradford Exchange tree has 4 little trains that circle the tree. That one goes into my grandson's room.

Thanks to my right knee I'm not feeling conflicted about working for Amazon. For some reason it's acting up, probably just gout. I guess the ham and eggs for breakfast yesterday and the ham sandwich this morning was not the best idea for breakfast. Not after causing the gout flare up by eating too much ham for dinner Sunday. I would be to slow and unstable to work today. Now I can play with Christmas decorations and be guilt free! You see, I find good in everything! it's like I tell my kids and baseball players; "you got to get your mind right!"

Have a great day Everybody. I'll try to check back in on one of my many coffee breaks.

Are these the trees you are referring to? does the train go to the top & reverse down?
minus 6 celcius here near Edmonton AB
 

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Coffee break is over. Tine toi get back at it.

I wasted most of the morning looking for my tree topper. It was in the first box of ornaments that I put next to the tree, the last box I looked in. Trust me when I say I have a lot of boxes of Christmas stuff. Worst part is they are on 3 different floors! At least my knee is feeling better, thank God.
 
my favorite type of Christmas lights; multi-color C9 opaque incandescent lights. I use them inside my train room/playpen so what they make heat, it's winter!
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Louis

As a lifelong Cubs fan I agree with your sediments on Joe Maddon. I assume his contract renewal is going to be based on how good of a start they are off to at the beginning of the season. If it’s slow then he will be sacked, and we will probably see Joe Girardi at the helm.

As for Brandon Hyde, you guys should be getting a pretty good manager. He was fairly well liked in Chicago. He related well to the young players. I’m glad he gets a shot to be a manager. Sorry to see him go.
 
Coming up for air before I spend the rest of my day, and probably all day tomorrow, with grades. I guess I've been fortunate that I don't recall much in the way of unfriendliness on any of the boards at this site.

I've heard that some sites have a rep for that, but this is really the only one I've hung around at. I only look at the Model Railroader discussion boards occasionally and while I have an ID there I can't recall when I've last commented. I don't think it was recently. Same w/ the MRH discussions.
 
My hope is we can develop more young talent. The trades at the deadline last year gave us many prospects. I think it's reasonable to hope for a 500 club. Maybe we can pull off another 1989 or even better.

Louis: Right now, I would settle for a 500 season. Good luck Mr. Hyde.

MLB is willingly losing the young people, that is what worries me the most.

Not for nothing, but they are willingly losing older long term fans also. These are the people who can afford the price of a ticket. The business end is eclipsing the game in too many ways. I always get an annual MLB TV subscription, which allows me to watch games on my phone, my Kindle Fire and my TV (using RUKU). I have a lot of time on my hands and can watch numerous games. last year I might have watched three or four all season. By the all star game, the only games I watched were the occasional Mets game on SNY. By August, I didn't even watch the Mets. I'm definitely not renewing the MLB subscription next season.

Boris
 
Lots to say, what's new? No time to say it!

Time to pickup my grandson from school.

God willing, I'll be back.
 
Afternoon All,

Did a couple of chores, wrapped a couple of presents then re-cut a piece of the track crossing and then sprayed everything Krylon Flat Black. Before final installation I will cover the flat black with W/S Asphalt.

Terry- Hope you're feeling better.

Garry- Nice looking grain elevator.

Louis- Those look like the ones I grew up with. They're hot as hades when on for awhile.

Greg- Nice layout scene.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
I've actually got something that might be interesting. Have any of you heard of and/or tried something called Blue Rail? It's a Bluetooth-technology chip/board that can be plugged into a DCC loco or hardwired to DC, and operates via a smartphone app. No other modifications are necessary. Supposedly, any number of locos and/or accessories can be controlled by a single phone. I was checking out their website, and it looks interesting.

Switching subjects, I'd been holding this cartoon to post, when I heard Eric had died. I'm pretty sure he would have liked it so, at the risk of being accused of insensitivity, or worse, I'm going ahead with it. This is in memory of my friend, Eric White:
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I believe it was Toot who was talking about crocodiles. In the same vein, back when the Space Shuttle was in operation, alligators had to be cleared off the runway at Kennedy Space Center before each landing, and staff still have to check under their cars before going home each day.

Finally, I just pre-ordered Kato's George HW Bush and Spirit SD 70(?)s, due out in July.

And, apropos of nothing:
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From Baseball Digest
December 18th is the birthday of the Georgia Peach, Ty Cobb. Born in Narrows, Ga., in 1886, Cobb was a perennial batting title champ and member of the first Hall of Fame class. A longtime Detroit Tiger, Cobb was an absolute force at the plate, hitting .400 three times and winning the batting title 12 times, and becoming the first member of the 4,000-hit club. Cobb won the 1909 Triple Crown and was the MVP in 1911, when he hit .419/.466/.620. At the time of his retirement, Cobb held a multitude of career records, including those 12 batting titles, 3,035 games played, 11,434 at-bats, 2,246 runs, 4,189 hits, 5854 total bases and a career batting average of .366. Cobb had a tumultuous career off the field as well, with notable fights with teammates, opposing players, umpires and fans. (AP/Photo)
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I'll add; he was known to sharpen his cleats
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His slide was meant to do harm.
 
Louis

As a lifelong Cubs fan I agree with your sediments on Joe Maddon. I assume his contract renewal is going to be based on how good of a start they are off to at the beginning of the season. If it’s slow then he will be sacked, and we will probably see Joe Girardi at the helm.

As for Brandon Hyde, you guys should be getting a pretty good manager. He was fairly well liked in Chicago. He related well to the young players. I’m glad he gets a shot to be a manager. Sorry to see him go.
Maddon wins ball games, but don't ask me how.

Maybe it's like Buch Showalter said when asked about Maddon "you should win with all those number one draft picks" That was when Maddon was with the Rays.

I think Joe Girardi is the sharpest baseball mind in the game today. I have no idea why the Yankees let him get away. The Orioles tried to hire him, but he turned us down, can't say that I blame him. Not that I would turn them down, I would work for my birds for free! Not that they would want me.

Former catchers like Hyde and Girardi can be good managers.
Those were always my favorite lights as well! It’s what I remember my father and decorating the house with in the 70s.
The man who raised me put those lights in our windows. I can still remember sitting on the arm of his chair staring at the lights.
 
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